Sunday, 1 January 2017

At Darkwood Films we (unsurprisingly) love short films and when we see something we love, we want to share it with the world.

We think people need more reasons to watch short films and what better reason to watch short films than 100 wonderful examples of the medium itself.

Whether it's the visuals, the narrative, or the performance, these films all have in one way or another cemented our appreciation for the art of short filmmaking.

Spanning 100 years, from indy produced rarities to first time films from world renowned filmmakers Darkwood presents, without comment, a telescoped look at a little bit of magic from the medium of short form cinema.

Sunday, 1 February 2015

An Englishman who grew up in London during World War II joins the military to fight in the Korean War. Following on from John Boorman’s Oscar nominated Hope and Glory, QUEEN AND COUNTRY picks up the story nearly a decade later as Bill begins basic training in the early Fifties, during the Korean War. A superb ensemble cast limns a wonderfully funny and often moving depiction of a still-recovering postwar England.

Thursday, 1 January 2015

Valentine is famous for writing parenting guide books and being the perfect mother, wife and woman. But then out of the blue her husband Nicholas announces that he wants a divorce and leaves her. VALENTINE'S KISS is a two part television Mini-Series released in 2015.

Darkwood's Leanne Natalie Jones worked as a Production Assistant during the shoot, produced by Gate Television Productions, Ltd.

From acclaimed director Ridley Scott comes the epic adventure EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, the story of one man’s daring courage to take on the might of an empire. Using state of the art visual effects and 3D immersion, Scott brings new life to the story of the defiant leader Moses as he rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.

As a VFX Editor, Darkwood's Mark S. Wright contributed to MPC's visual effects work on the film, which involved huge crowds, massive environments and complex FX work across 10 different scenes, including the climactic Red Sea sequence.

Saturday, 1 November 2014

Directed by Jon Favreau, based on Rudyard Kipling's timeless stories and inspired by Disney's classic animated film, THE JUNGLE BOOK is an all-new live-action epic adventure about Mowgli, a man-cub who's been raised by a family of wolves. But Mowgli finds he is no longer welcome in the jungle when fearsome tiger Shere Khan, who bears the scars of Man, promises to eliminate what he sees as a threat.

Darkwood's Mark S. Wright was one of the senior VFX Editors at MPC, in a team that took home the BAFTA and Academy Award for outstanding visual effects in 2017.

Friday, 1 August 2014

Marvel's GUARDIAN'S OF THE GALAXY expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits--Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon; Groot, a tree-like humanoid; the deadly and enigmatic Gamora; and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand--with the galaxy's fate in the balance.

Darkwood's Mark S. Wright worked in the Editorial team at VFX studio MPC, who were one of the lead facilities responsible for creating the BAFTA and Academy Award nominated visual effects for the film. Key sequences included the development and animation of the extra-terrestrial, sentient tree-like creature Groot, a swarm of spaceships and set extension/environment work for the planet Morag, a synthetic Xandar city, the sky-based spaceship battle and more.